Use this free slide-based multimedia app to put lessons and other material on any web browser OR iOs and Android devices. Build your own presentations using pre-made templates. The site does offer some ready-made presentations (some free). Many of the video and text presentations are from Khan Academy and include questions to answer as you work through the presentations. What is the best part of Nearpod? Teachers control the pace of the lesson, and students do not move to the next screen until advanced by the teacher. Use the teacher version of the app to push out the presentation to your students. Every student uses their own student app to follow the screens and answer the questions. This provides immediate feedback about every student. The feedback can be emailed to the teacher for later review. This formative assessment tool is invaluable and a unique part of the app. The tool also includes drawing for students to work out problems. Teachers are able to identify students who are not "on task" and not working within the app when a little red light pops up. Absent students are able to complete the assignment at home.

In the Classroom

This is an exciting way to begin an iPad (or BYOD) integration into the classroom. Though it may be difficult to determine the best pacing of the lesson, the ability to slow down the advancement of the next screen allows more time to digest the information. Be aware that students needing more time may be very frustrated as the screen may advance before they are able to finish. Start small by uploading presentations and using JPEG and other images. Add interactive elements such as polls and videos. Grab students attention by using the first slide to deliver a piece of humorous information. Create guided learning stations and push out several presentations to different devices as students move through the various lessons to be learned. This technique can be helpful for struggling learners. Use this tool to help reinforce the most difficult parts of the lesson. Use the app to create schedules for training, clubs, and more. For English, learn about grammar rules, sentence structure, and other elements necessary for good writing. For ESL/ELL classes and world languages, practice various vocabulary words and learn tenses of verbs. Learn vocabulary and basic scientific concepts in any science class or facts about historical periods in history classes. This app is a valuable tool in any classroom.

Create your own unique musical compositions with Incredibox. Express your inner musician with this simple way of creating personal musical masterpieces. Choose from one of the four versions, version 4 is more recent, and easier to use and understand. Simply drag and drop to add beats, melodies, a chorus, and special effects to create a musical creation. When finished add clothing and hats to characters and bring your entire composition to life! Available on the web and as an iOS app.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use Incredibox as a great warm-up activity for a choir, band, or any sort of music appreciation class. As part of music class lessons, discuss the different elements in compositions. Use in any class as background music for podcasts, movies, PowerPoints, or blogs. Highlight and honor the musical geniuses in your classroom with this easy tool. Allow your learning support students instant success while challenging gifted students to create the perfect piece. Use in writing class to create mood. Play a composition as background while reading poetry or doing artwork. Help students memorize mnemonics by accompanying them with an audio track a la rap. Use music tracks as a writing prompt and enjoy the fun.

Find news and resources for grades 7-12 at PBS Newshour Extra. Search the site by Subject Area, Videos, Arts and Media, Science, and more. Explore news articles written for students with the background and context needed to understand complex topics. The Daily Videos are ad-free and have related stories along the right side of the page. Read the current events news stories and follow the Extra Twitter feed. Don't miss the many free lesson plans including current events, American history, health, government, holidays, and more. Lesson plans are all aligned to the Common Core standards. Lesson plan topics vary from "Personal reflections on the poetry of Maya Angelou" to "Selma to Montgomery: An introduction to the 1965 marches" and countless others! Look for the Student Voices and Student Reporting Labs for those who would like to be published or to help a local PBS station produce the news.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Watch the news together on your interactive whiteboard or projector. Allow students to watch independently on laptops or at a learning station. Use any video or article as a current events writing prompt. Challenge students to create blog posts about them using Throwww, reviewed here. Throwww allows you to create "quick and easy" blog posts for one-time use only. Don't forget the many free lesson plans (already aligned to Common Core standards). Click on the Lesson Plans link to explore the countless topics available (Poetry, Veterans, Elections, Ebola, Civil Rights, and more). For articles and videos about conflicts and tension, you might want to have your students engage in a debate using a tool such as ProConIt, reviewed here. Keep your class up-to-date on the news using this site. Provide this link on your class website for students (and families) to access both in and out of your classroom.

Create and manage assessments, tests, and quizzes. Create surveys and polls using QuestBase. All can be administered online or printed. Take assessments using any online device or print choosing multiple versions and formats. Enter questions manually or import using built-in wizards. Choose from different question formats. Use pictures, movies, special characters, or math equations to personalize any content. Publish online, embed onto a website, share via email, or print finished tests. Other options include the ability to add timers, passwords, and privacy options.

In the Classroom

Use this tool for creating practice quizzes for your students to take on any computer or device. Use as a formative assessment to see what material needs more review with classes (or individual students). Students can take the quiz on their own for at-home study. Share with students as a resource for creating quizzes for studying at home. When students are using surveys and polls for reports, introduce them to QuestBase since it works on any device that accesses the Internet.

Copy Paste Character offers a large assortment of characters to use with any text. Choose from characters within a favorite set such as music notes, smiley faces, or mathematical symbols. Click on any symbol then paste into your document. View other sets such as graphic shapes, punctuation, and emojis using the drop-down box. Registration is not required, but it is an option if you want to create and save sets for future use.

In the Classroom

Bookmark this site to easily find symbols for use on your class webpage, newsletters, and lessons. Share with students as a resource for finding characters and symbols for use on any project. Add this link to your class website for students (and families) to access at home.

Here you will find everything you will ever need to know about plagiarism and citing sources. Click on Plagiarism 101 and find out exactly what plagiarism is and the different types of plagiarism. Citing Sources explains what a citation is, why one should cite sources, how to paraphrase, how to quote material, what a footnote is, and when one should cite the source. Although this site is rather plain in appearance, it is a hot topic and definitely a site to save and share with students!

In the Classroom

Meet your Common Core standards for nonfiction reading using the pages at this informative site! In addition, every student who creates a report, presentation, speech, or project, in any subject, needs to know this information. Consider dividing and presenting this site with a teacher in another curriculum, so students get the idea that this is information for EVERY class. Consider presenting the information, questions, and quizzes using a program such as GoClass, reviewed here or Answer Pad, reviewed here. With these programs, you can create questions or a scavenger hunt. Then you can quiz students on the information and have it all self-corrected. Moreover, using one of these programs will make this text heavy, but necessary material, much more tolerable for your students. You may want to challenge your gifted and musically inclined students to create a rap highlighting the important information they learned about plagiarism and citing sources. Have them teach the rap to the rest of the class. Or have students create a word cloud of the important terms they learn from this site using a tool such as Wordle (reviewed here).

Use ActivityCircle (formerly Frolyc) to create multimedia lessons on the web, and have access to them via the iPad (or any web browser). ActivityCircle also has ready-made lessons aligned to Common Core Standards. Search lessons by grade level or keyword. All ready-made activities list grade level, subject area, Lexile levels, and standards addressed. Whether using a premade lesson or designing your own, assign a lesson to students and collect data on student responses. Educators, tutors, and parents can author or create activities. Sign up with email and add student profiles. All assignments, creations, etc. that were on Frolyc transferred seemlessly to ActivityCircle. Just click on the name of the review above and you'll go there. There are several excellent videos to help you create everything on ActivityCircle! If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable. You could always view the instructional videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Once you have created a class and student profiles, assign lessons from the catalog or create your own. If your students are using iPads, they will need to have the free ActivityCircle Spot app added. The app requires Wi-Fi to sync with activitycircle.com. Student profiles will automatically sync with the iPads. Each student can only interact with the activities assigned to him or her via an access code. Since ActivityCircle is web-based you can create easy, simple activities or elaborate units. Start building Common Core aligned and differentiated activities such as reading, filling out concept maps, writing paragraphs, drawing, answering questions, taking quizzes, and more. Add links to read and hear multimedia content such as videos and slideshows. For longer videos, you may want to put a tag or comment in certain areas. Use a program like EDPuzzle, reviewed here, to accomplish this. Tags can be as simple as "answer question 4 now." Alternatively, use one of the ready-made lessons from the catalog for free. The app will need Wi-Fi for video and voice-over. ActivityCircle publishes Common Core Standards aligned reading comprehension activities to this app for student use. The possibilities are endless!

Use your pictures and PhotoFunia to create photo collages, flyers, family trees, holiday albums, and more. No registration is needed! PhotoFunia has hundreds of effects and filters. More are added weekly. To add shadows, age your photo, or render it black and white just visit the Filters category. Add clever features such as an astronaut or a Santa suit, a witch's hat or a queen's crown. Looking for an attractive frame for your photos? Find one here. Write on the sand or graffiti text on the wall. Carve your name on the ground or create your very own road sign using text effects. The program is as easy to use as picking the effect and uploading a photo. Save it to your computer or email it. Try using PhotoFunia online with no registration, or get the free app for iOS or Andriod, and most other smartphones. At the time of this review, all photo effects appeared appropriate for use in the classroom. However, we always suggest you preview the tool before sharing it with students.

In the Classroom

You do not need to be artistic to transform a personal or stock photo into a stunning work of art or even an amusing image. Adjust any image's color intensity, value, and hue using the filters. Use this tool anytime that photos need to be edited for use in class blogs, newsletters, wikis, or websites. In primary grades, this tool could be useful for teachers to use to edit pictures from a field trip, science experiments, and more. Share the editing process with your younger students using your interactive whiteboard or projector. Edit together! Encourage older students to use this site themselves on images for projects or presentations. Use the features and effects to edit images to fit styles of photos when doing historical reports or to set the mood.

Why just record your voice or send a message the same old boring way? Use cartoon and movie characters to speak your message instead! Type your message in the box. There is a 25 word limit. The site takes clips from TV and movies to create a short video. Each word uses a different clip. If a clip is not available for a word you pick, Crumbles uses a computerized voice instead. A silly tool, but a fun one to enjoy. Click create link to share or share via Facebook and Twitter. Be sure to monitor students carefully as clips can be found from ANY word that they type into the message. It would be a good practice to approve messages students want to create before sharing the tool with them.

In the Classroom

Use this engaging (and fun) tool to create an announcement for the start of a student presentation. Create one to share the writing prompt for the day. Students may be inspired by the movie/TV clips that generate the message. Create a "6 degrees of" type assignment where the video/TV clips generated must have something in common. Students can take time to look at the clips to identify items in the background, characteristics of the actors/actresses, etc. Create a similar type of message from video clips of students taken throughout the year. Or, create your own by taping students saying words and splicing them together to create a similar end result. Use a tool such as StepUp reviewed here.

FollowUpThen provides simple email reminders for any email address or device. Use FollowUpThen to clean up emails sitting in your inbox. Forward it to FollupThen, and include a time or date to receive the email back. Add FollowUpThen as a recipient on any email to receive a reminder to follow-up on the contents. Be sure to watch the introductory video and read the "How To Use" section for complete information on the capabilities of using FollowUpThen. The free plan offers up to 50 follow ups per month.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use FollowUpThen to receive reminders when waiting for email responses from colleagues or parents. Set up annual or monthly reminders for recurring events such as conference dates, programs, or report card due dates. Clean-up your email accounts. Send yourself reminder emails for due dates, future projects, parent contacts, and more.

Love Google Doodles, those fun and spontaneous changes to the Google logo? View the gallery of Google Doodles on this site. Click About on the top menu to learn the background of Google Doodle. View the Doodle Archive with the newest Doodle appearing first on the page. Click the information button (i) for each doodle to bring up an information box. Click on More Doodle Details to go to the Doodle page or click Search for to learn more about the topic or date. Move from one Doodle to the other by clicking the forward or back arrows on each Doodle page. Click Doodle4Google to view the Google contest. The competition typically takes place during the Fall. Click on Classroom Activities for typically takes place during the Fall. Click on Classroom Activities for ideas on sparking and nurturing creativity in kids of all ages. Check back to find the next Doodle4Google contest for students.

In the Classroom

This amazing collection of Doodles can be used to spark thinking in a variety of classes. Use the Doodles to teach a little history. View the resources about the event, person, or country that inspired the Doodle. Encourage thinking with your gifted kids by sharing the whole gallery for exploration or a specific Doodle. Use these Doodles to spark a new project idea or challenge kids to create a simple "doodle" as a new way to report on a historic figure or a content idea. Think your students will be intimidated making a computer Doodle? Consider creating a Doodle using any computer art software or simply creating one on paper. Use these ideas in Science to show the scientific inventions or concepts. In social studies, use Doodles to showcase specific events here and around the World. When looking at perspectives of people around the world, create doodles that can show more than one point of view. Write paragraphs or stories based on Google Doodles. Use Google Doodles in STEM initiatives at your school. Don't forget Art or Gifted programs! Get your students excited about the making of the Doodles and what code writing can do! Use tools such as Scratch, reviewed here, or Tynker, reviewed here, to practice coding.

Comments

Nice to have past "Google Doodles" in one website to go back and look at.David, AK, Grades: 9 - 12

Great ideas for short, informative paragraphs to practice this type of writing. Let kids find a google idea for a day, for their particular world/setting/priorities...FUN! Archives are instructive.Patricia, NJ, Grades: 6 - 12

ImageQuiz uses images as a starting point for creating learning quizzes. Choose from quizzes on the site or create your own. Choose from the list of all quizzes, take a random quiz, or pick from popular tags such as math or physics. Create your own quiz easily. Upload any image and draw lines around desired areas. If you wish, add a question for students to answer. View the video tutorials for complete instructions. This site was created in the UK. American English speakers may notice some slight spelling differences.

In the Classroom

Create an ImageQuiz to review any topic such as items in world language, places on a map, rock formations, cell diagram, etc. Share a link to the ImageQuiz on your class website for students to use for review at home. Have students create ImageQuizzes for review on any subject.

Create your own flashcards using Cram or find what you need from Cram's library of over 50 million flashcards! Browse by subject to find flashcards or use the search box to explore available cards. Create your own flashcards then download and share for use on PC or Mac. View flashcards in several modes such as traditional flashcard, memorize, or test. Shuffle cards or place in alphabetical order for studying.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Create flashcards for your classes or have students make their own. Try using them as an introduction to a concept, then again in the practice of the concept, and again as a final review. It is a nice three for one creation deal! This would be great for teaching Latin prefixes and suffixes of words. Use for science terms, or standardized test preparation. Try having students create flashcards and share with each other to quiz themselves within their own groups. Teach students in higher grades how to create flash cards with multiple blanks to challenge their brain to remember more pieces of the puzzle. Show them how to carefully read through classroom notes and underline the most important word or words in a sentence. Then have them leave out the most important words for their flashcards. Learning support teachers might want to have small groups create cards together to review before tests. Have students create flashcard sets to "test" classmates on what they "teach" in oral reports. Be sure to check the data base for already created sets to save you time making them yourself!

More than a student response system, Verso allows you to create lessons, track and group students' responses, collect data, and give everyone in the class a voice. Create a class and students join using a unique code. Create lessons containing instructions and content such as a video or video clips, sound recording, document, or link to a website. Students cannot see responses by others until they have submitted their own choice/response. Once students can see others' responses, they are anonymous. Only the teacher can see who made each response. Students can "Like" and/or comment on others' responses, anonymously. Students and teachers can flag comments they deem inappropriate. Teachers can see who made comments and choose to hide or show it. Use Verso in the classroom or at home on any device. This app is perfect for flipping learning since it will work on any device and the web. There are many instructional videos available to help you get started! The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

See ideas for creating lessons on Verso by clicking on the tab in the top menu labeled "Getting Started." You will see several "challenges" (lessons) created by teachers. There is plenty of video support for setting up your classes, getting students registered, and creating lessons. There is even a "challenge" for students to use before you assign them your lesson. If you have ever wanted greater student engagement, increased student interest, and heightened discussion and interactivity in your classroom, Verso is the answer. Students can give their input and express their views anonymously. This tool will give everyone in your class a voice, even the shyest student.

Use this site to create unique lessons that require critical thinking responses from your students. Math and science teachers can use annotated images such as a microscope, cell, equation parts, etc. Pose questions or allow students to pose their own "I wonder if..." questions as they watch and listen. In world language classes, have students use new vocabulary to comment on descriptions of what they see while classmates act out a scene from a video or novel. Autistic or behavior support students can guess the feelings of the people while watching a video. For longer videos, you may want to put a tag or comment in certain areas before uploading them to Verso. Use a tool like Zaption, reviewed here, for students to pause the videos and ask or answer questions right on the video.

Quill is an interactive grammar program with over 150 Common Core, grade level aligned, lessons. Sign up to use the program by entering your name, username, password, and (optional) email. Create a class and track progress, assess, and assign what individuals have not mastered. The program has color-coded "heat maps" to track progress easily. This tool individualizes grammar and writing for ALL learning levels. There are exercises revising interesting passages. There are also practice questions that require the writing of complete sentences.

In the Classroom

There are two ways for students to sign up. Give them the code to join the class, and they sign up themselves, or you enter them manually making the student username a combination of their name and the class code. Challenge (and excel) your gifted students with the concepts practiced at this site. Since student assignments are at their level, students can experience significant acceleration in practicing these necessary skills. ESL/ELL students will undoubtedly benefit from the practice using correct English, in their writing, over a continuous period. Use this site as part of your rotation during learning stations or centers. Inspire every student in the class to become a proficient writer by using Quill at least weekly. Be sure to share this tool on your class website so that students can practice at home, too.

Find over 100,000 unusual and interesting drawings, paintings, photographs and advertisements related to medical and social history through contemporary healthcare and biomedical science. This site is dedicated to the history of health and medicine, and the oldest examples go back two thousand years. Everything is available under Creative Commons licensing. Browse the collection through the galleries or search by keyword. The titles of the galleries are Explore, Favourites, Science, History, Art (for Schools), and Galleries. Under each title, find several categories such as Olympics, Health, World, Pathogens, Cell Division, DNA, Vaccines, Surgery (Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern), Aids Posters, Patterns and Texture, and many more. The site was created in the UK, so some of the spellings may differ from those in American English.

In the Classroom

History, science, and art teachers can explore the galleries dedicated to those subjects to include pictures in newsletters, blogs, and class websites. Share the site with students on an interactive whiteboard or projector when they need images for projects. Find images from locations you are studying in world cultures or geography class. Find images to use in student online projects such as Bookemon (to create online books) or Superlame (an image editor to add text and thought bubbles). Art teachers can find images for students to use as references or in photomontages (with credit). Use images for writing prompts or even to create descriptive sentences. Have one student describe the image as the other sketches the image. Now compare the described image to the real image. Keep this site as a reference link on your class web page for any time students are creating wikis, blogs, or electronic projects where they need images.

Build interactive video lessons with playposit (fka eduCanon). Create an account and get your teacher code for students to use. Either paste in the address of the YouTube or Vimeo video you want to use, or use keywords to search YouTube and find it. Stop the video at any point and input a reflective pause or multiple choice, fill in the blank, check all that apply, and free response questions. Find several tutorial videos for playposit (fka EduCanon) on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, the videos may not be viewable. You could always view them at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube.

In the Classroom

Create playposit videos for use in your flipped classroom or for differentiating instruction in any subject. Assign videos to individuals or groups of students. Monitor student usage and progress using the site's tools. Allow students to create their own videos to review classroom material. Create videos for beginning of units, end of unit review, or ongoing instruction throughout the year. Share with Special Education and ESL/ELL teachers as a resource for creating and differentiating assignments. Create playposit videos for end of year review sessions.

Not only can you create dazzling photo slideshows online, but the Roxio Photoshow products are full multimedia presentations. And the best part: no registration is required to get started! (Certain features do require a membership.) Combine your photos and video clips with broadcast-quality credits, captions, transitions, effects, and a great musical soundtrack. The features do not stop there! You get a personal web page and can create a custom web address for it. On your web page, create channels (like galleries). Add as many slideshows to channels as you would like. You can also add a friend's slideshow to your channels. Share your Roxio Photoshows on your membership web page.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

The possibilities for using this tool in the classroom are limited only by your imagination. Students can show their understanding about cell development, how to use a microscope, the causes of the fall of Rome, types of landforms, the events in a novel, or just about anything else you can think of. Have them upload an image, add captions, transitions, and music. Create a Roxio Photoshow by finding Creative Commons images for student projects (with credit, of course), using Compfight, reviewed here. Have students search for suitable music for their presentation by using Royalty Free Music, reviewed here, or ccMixter Dig reviewed here. Of course, you will require them to show their sources in the credits!

Create interactive, mobile-friendly story "maps" that include videos, links, forms, images, and even text. "Maps" can be images with clickable spots or a geographic map using Google maps as an interface. You can create a story around an image. Some interesting maps in the Showcase are America's Biggest Rodeos, 2014 Nobel Prize Winners, Africa's Forever Wars, and North America 360. Sign up with a username, password, and email. Click on the three bars in the top left corner to see a menu. Look at Showcase story maps or create a new project. There are basic templates and a style editor to change colors of the map features. View maps on any device that can access the Internet. Share by embedding on your website or blog, via email, or through social networks.

In the Classroom

Use maps for current events, geography, or much more. Use your interactive whiteboard or projector and show a sampler of Showcase maps to students. For example, share Great Women in History and The American Revolution. Consider asking a small team of students to create a Heganoo about a historic event or environmental issue you are studying. Have the student team demonstrate to the class how they created the project and how to use Heganoo at the same time. Heganoo would make a great project for any subject area. Students can create a Heganoo about a battle, a natural disaster, a famous scientist or mathematician, an author's life, or a short story you just read. Creating a Heganoo would be a good project for your gifted students to extend their learning about any subject.

Formatically automatically puts an assignment into the MLA format. The simple, straightforward looks are deceiving. This tool is a dream-come-true for any middle, high school, or college student who has ever had to format a paper. Input information for the cover sheet, essay, and Works Cited. Formatically will take care of the rest. This tool works in conjunction with EasyBib, reviewed here, for the Works Cited. In addition, under the How To tab are an essay writing guide, MLA formatting guide, and Word tutorials with videos. The videos are hosted on YouTube. If your district blocks YouTube, they may not be viewable. You could always view the videos at home and bring them to class "on a stick" to share. Use a tool such as KeepVid, reviewed here, to download the videos from YouTube. At the time of this review the creators say formatting for APA and Chicago Style will be available soon.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use your interactive whiteboard or projector and this tool to walk your students through each step of the MLA formatting process. Point out all the particulars that this tool is doing so students get a better understanding of MLA formatting. Send the students home to use the tool on their most recent essay as practice. Ask them to keep track of any questions or problems they have while using this tool. The next day, go over the questions.